A Change In Perspective
by gortys
Summary: Fresh off of a suicide attempt, Kenny McCormick finds himself at Forestview Hospital. He's not exactly pleased to be there, but with no choice in the matter, he may as well make the most of it. our favourite boys and girls come together somewhere unexpected. south park doesn't exist, no prior relationships between characters, and kenny is 100% mortal. (crossposted from ao3)


**_alright, this is gonna need a bit of an introduction._**

 ** _i myself am mentally ill and, around 6 months ago, was hospitalized. even before then, i was always struck by the inaccuracy and all-around offensiveness of most fanfiction revolving around mental illness and hospitalization. with this fic, i hope to shine some light on the truth of things, show that wards aren't the end of the world, but also show that they aren't perfect, either._**

 ** _in essence, this fanfic will be very personal to me. i have around 8 chapters planned and probably more to come, as well as the ending chapter and epilogue. this is the first multi-chapter fanfiction i've tried to write, but i think i'll get through it._**

 ** _that being said, here's the first chapter. not very exciting, but we gotta start somewhere._**

 ** _(this was originally posted on archive of our own on december 15th, 2015, but i'm uploading it here as well.)_**

* * *

Kenny wondered if he'd ever catch a fucking break.

Of course, when he tries to overdose in a back alley with a couple bottles of prescription narcotics and some vodka, some asshole finds him and calls 911. Of course, when they call 911 and talk to the operator, they send an ambulance. Of course, when the ambulance picks him up, they take him to the nearest hospital. Of course, when they reach the hospital, they drag him into emergency and pump his stomach. Of fucking course.

God damn it.

He just wanted to be dead. Why can't they just let him die? He asked a nurse that while they were cleaning up after pumping his stomach and the nurse just smiled a tad awkwardly and told him that it's their job to keep him alive, blah blah blah. They kept working and Kenny resisted the urge to throw up on them.

Okay. Alright. Rundown of the current situation.

He was in the emergency room after a suicide attempt. His stomach had been pumped and he'd been here for a couple hours now, in and out of coherency though he was pretty sure he never lost consciousness. He'd been stripped of his clothes (which were put into a bag and then locked somewhere, or at least that's what they told him) and was currently wearing a hospital gown. He was alone in a room with no door and a nurse typing away at a computer next to the entryway. The curtains were pulled around his bed, and he was kind of grateful because he has a killer headache and kind of didn't want anyone passing to see him anyway. There's a couple other beds in the room but, obviously, they were empty. Nobody was here with him, he hadn't left a note or called anyone beforehand, and his roommates couldn't give less of a fuck where he was.

So, he was on his own. Fuck. Great. Now he really wanted to be dead.

"Excuse me?"

Apparently while he was thinking, the nurse that was at the computer had come over.

"Hello. I'm the nurse on duty right now. My name is Paula." She stopped expectantly and after a few seconds Kenny realized she wanted him to introduce himself.

"I'm Kenny." He said. It comes out faint and hoarse and he hated it.

"It's nice to meet you, Kenny. So it looks like in all that chaos," the nurse smiled then, as if it was a funny joke, "that we didn't get all the necessary information. Your clothes didn't contain a wallet or any kind of identification, either." She wheeled over the table for the bed and put some paperwork on it. "Can you hold a pen, Kenny?" She offered him a pen.

"Well, we'll see, I guess." Kenny took the pen in a somewhat unsteady grip. "So far, so good." The nurse smiled politely and he looked at the paperwork she's given him. Name, address, emergency contact, blah blah blah... Standard stuff.

"Okay. While you fill that out, do you want me to get you anything? Some water, juice?" The nurse offered.

"Some orange juice would be cool." Kenny didn't look up from the paperwork. He had filled out his name and address, but was now stuck on the emergency contact. Normally, he would put in Karen's name and phone number, like she did with him when she filled out this kind of thing. But now, they would definitely call her, and tell her her shitty ass brother tried to kill himself but couldn't even accomplish something so basic and now he's sitting in a hospital room racking up bills as he sits on his ass filling out stupid fucking paperwork and feeling sorry for himself and could she please come and take his baby ass home so they can make room for people who actually need help instead of a swift kick in the head.

"Is there something wrong?" The nurse was back with a cup of orange juice with a lid and a straw and she set it on the table, looking at him.

"Uh... Well. My emergency contact." Kenny focused on the orange juice, taking it and quickly shoving the straw into his mouth to drink some.

"Do you not have anyone?" The nurse looked sorry for him all of a sudden. If he saw one more ounce of pity from anyone, he was going to scream.

"No, no, that's... It's... Well, uh. You probably read in my file I tried to overdose, right?" Kenny looked to the nurse and she nodded. "My emergency contact is my sister, but, like... I don't want her to know about this. This is pathetic. I don't want her to see me like this." He drank more orange juice, ignoring the stinging behind his eyes.

"Well... You're an adult, 20 years old, so you don't necessarily need anyone to come. So we won't call her if you don't want us to. But shouldn't you have someone to support you right now?" The nurse asked gently.

Kenny laughed, nearly coughing up juice, and set the cup down. He returned to filling out the paperwork.

"She doesn't need to see me like this," he reiterated. He skipped the emergency contact and just filled out the rest. The nurse seemed to wait for him to say more, but he didn't.

"Alright. Well. We'll have a doctor along to see you shortly, let me know if you need anything, okay, Kenny?"

"Yeah. Okay."

It didn't take him much longer to finish filling out the paperwork, and he shuffled out of bed and down the small aisle between the walls and the beds to the nurse station to give it to the nurse. Paula. Whatever. After getting back into bed and getting comfortable, Kenny sighed. What a situation he got himself into. What were they going to do with him? He heard shoes coming towards him and guessed he was about to find out.

"Hello, Kenny?" An unfamiliar voice. "I'm the resident psychiatrist." Kenny groaned inwardly and the doctor pushed aside his curtain to enter. "Hello, Kenny." The doctor sat down in a stool next to his bed and Kenny looked at him. The doctor had a file, probably his, and was skimming it with a pen at the ready. Fuck. Great.

"Alright. So. You came in with a stomach full of pills and alcohol a few hours ago. How are you feeling?" The doctor looked at him.

"About as well as you could expect," Kenny snorted, shrugging his shoulders. "I just fucked up killing myself. How do you think I feel?"

"So this was a suicide attempt?" The doctor wrote something down and Kenny's nose wrinkled in irritation.

"Obviously. That doesn't just happen by accident."

"Well, sometimes it does. You know, young people and their drugs and their parties..." The doctor trailed off, looking at him again. "You are young. Very young. Only 20 years old."

"Yes, and?" Kenny was getting angry at being prodded. He was tired. He was fresh off a suicide attempt. What kind of bedside manner was this to go and interview him about it now?

"Most young people don't try to kill themselves." There was a grave tone in the psychiatrist's voice.

"Most young people aren't me, then, I guess." Kenny shrugged again. "What do you want from me?"

"Well, Kenny," the doctor shifted in his stool, looking to the file again. "I'm here to see if you need help. We didn't know this was a definite suicide attempt, but now we do. You seem irritated and touchy, you came in off the street with no identification and no phone... Well..."

"No shit, I'm irritated and touchy! I was trying to fucking die and some idiot went and fucked it all up! God!" Kenny snapped, sitting upright instead of leaning back against the raised bed. "I had no phone and no ID on purpose, so you wouldn't know who I was when I came into the fucking- stop writing!" Kenny almost threw his cup at the doctor but instead just put his hand on the bed table. The doctor looked up at him but the pen was still moving.

"When you came into the where, exactly?" The doctor prompted, and Kenny's shoulders slumped.

"When I came in here, too late, and you'd just write me off as some John Doe so my family would think I ran off and went missing or something," Kenny admitted. Even though he knew that wasn't how it worked, even though he knew they would figure out who he was and Karen's heart would be broken, he just want to put it off for a little bit.

"You wanted it to be too late?"

"Yes."

"How long had you been thinking about suicide, Mr. McCormick?" The doctor turned a page and Kenny felt himself start to get a little angry again.

"Forever. Ages. For as long as I can remember."

"And was this planned?" That question made Kenny pause.

"Well... It wasn't really, I guess. I mean, I always kind of had an idea, like, I would do it alone and somewhere isolated, and try to keep my family from finding out, but like, I didn't have any set date or anything," Kenny replied, looking on helplessly as the doctor wrote and wrote and wrote.

"Were you depressed?"

"Obviously."

"Was there a reason?"

"I wish." Kenny laughed mirthlessly. "I wish there was a reason I felt like this."

"I see." The doctor wrote some more things down and then closed his file. "Well, alright, Kenny. What I'm going to do is see if any wards have room for you."

"What? Wards?" Kenny tensed. "You mean like, psychiatry wards, mental hospitals?"

"Err... Yes. This hospital doesn't have its own psychiatry unit, only a few psychiatrists like myself, but there's plenty of places around that could help you-"

"That's going to cost money!" Kenny interrupted, and the doctor frowned.

"There will be payment plans and social assistance."

"Plus, like, I don't belong there! I'm fine! I'm not-"

"You just tried to kill yourself," the doctor said with no lack of finality, and Kenny couldn't correct him. "I am going to consult with the other doctors and we will find somewhere for you to get the help you need so you don't end up in this emergency room again at the end of next month."

"But..." Kenny couldn't find anything to say and simply slumped back against the bed.

"This will all be for the best, I promise." The doctor promptly left and Kenny stared at the curtain that closed behind him.

God. He wanted a break.


End file.
